A great poem for Memorial Day
Published Poetry – Filing Papers in December
Filing Papers in December
Walls creak at night, talking
to one another in the voices
of those who’ve lived here.
That same wind bends around
the same corner of the building,
howling something about night
shadows, pitch-crazy in
the back and forth light
of green streetlights swaying.
And I have no hands for it all.
My fingers ache from empty
grabs at empty places
where a voice had seemed
flesh enough to touch. Walls
just go on cracking. Even
in the corner, wrapped
in an old man’s blanket,
laying out dead years
in pages of a manuscript
blown into disorder by
the furnace wind from
the rushing duct, even
in the grey shelves where
I lay my eyes out evenly,
even in the cold-sheeted
barebed, ghosts of all
the brave days dance.
No; don’t let the brain go hot.
They’re just green shadows
from dancing streetlights
gliding through streaked windows.
Just walls creaking cold.
Just a wind, not a spirit,
answering its own not-call,
while the furnace in imitation
rushes warmth to a cold corner
where hands assemble voices.
Published in Alura Quarterly (1989)
Published Poetry – Oregon, 1972
Oregon, 1972
Tall pines, bed needles beneath,
ash below the rock precipice:
He has come to an end of
denials, and flows with the cold
stream of melting ice.
He cuts deep with the rivulets.
He molds crevices in mud.
He tears with the falling water
and leaps rapids of rock and time
and dives for the valley.
Surrounded there by sorties
of mosquitoes, water wrigglings
of snakes, he drifts thru the swamps
to waterfall, and midair dances.
He becomes mist
He powers the small generators.
He runs to the city
and becomes a lake,
upholds the children swimming,
and the sailboats highing to the wind,
and he reflects fireworks by night.
He sleeps there one night
awaiting the change
to peacefulness and deep moving.
Original version published in The Free Lance (1978
Published Poetry – Drifts
Drifts
Becalmed in springtime,
tides out, sandbars in,
and lost from it all.
The scent of coming summer touches,
then blows away.
But even summer comes down
to thunderheads
and long days
and the humid heat of Michigan.
Out on the lake
some sailboat drifts,
having lost it all, upside down:
In remembrance of snowdrifts, other white
sails in wet undulations.
And someone yells,
and starts the dream again.
Published in Stone Country (1985)
Published Poetry – Back to the River
Back to the River
Back to the river,
though the time is cold,
the night old, but clear,
the wind making waves
that speak darkly
shore to shore.
Back to the river,
sit beside a smoky fire,
eat roast corn,
blackened potatoes.
Watch my insubstantial
shadow flicker ephemerally
in the tall trees.
Black waves of the river
break across the rocks,
make music with the shore.
The winds that brought
the waves are done.
Sit in cool grass
with river waves behind,
with the orange heat
of the snapping fire
in my face, on my arms.
Wait out each wave
for the one that turns
a morning free, and me
back to the river.
Published in Ripples (1985)